Cold food was fine. Though her stomach growled in protest, she swallowed the last bits of her meal and tried not to think of the wonderful soups Orabilis had prepared each day she’d stayed at Rowan Cottage. Perhaps tomorrow she’d keep an eye out for rabbit tracks. Fresh meat would be a welcome change from this dried, salty fare.
Before attempting to sleep, she placed her bow and quiver next to her and pulled out the short sword Orabilis had insisted she take along on her journey. Should she find herself in close combat, it would be a much more effective weapon than the small knives she carried on her person.
Using a heavy stick, she fished a couple of large stones out of the fire pit and fit them under her furs, close to her body. With her woolens pulled tight around her to block the wind, she settled in close to the fire. She forced her eyes closed and hoped sleep would overtake her before her unruly mind had a chance to torment her with worry over all the ways she could fail in her quest.
Four days in the saddle had taken its toll and, in spite of the worries plaguing her, she quickly drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
So deep, it felt like only moments had passed when she startled awake, a crushing pain bearing down on her back.
And a sharp blade resting at her throat.
“I thought that might wake even a heavy sleeper like yerself, my lady,” a rough voice said from behind her.
She was awake all right, but with the weight of some villain’s knee pressing into her back, she couldn’t lift her head to identify her attacker.
Slowly, she edged her hand out, but as her fingers raked the edge of her blade, the weapon skittered out of her reach.
Two of them, then. The one holding her down and the one who’d kicked her weapon away.
“No, no, lass. No weapons for you,” the second one said with a chuckle. “The way I figure it, a woman out here all alone, she’s either a runaway or a criminal. So which is it?”
“The horse is too fine for a criminal.”
A third voice, off to her left.
“She could have stolen it.”
A fourth man, on the other side of the fire.
“No. You saw her mounted as well as I did. The tack fits her too well to be stolen. Looks to have been made for her special, right down to the fancy sheath. I’d venture to guess she’s running from a new husband.”
They’d been watching her all evening. How could she have been so careless as to allow herself to be captured like this?
“Let’s have a look at what we’ve found, aye?”
The weight was lifted off her back and a hand fastened on her collar, dragging her up to her feet. There were indeed four men, spaced around the campsite, warriors from the looks of them. All leering at her like she was a piece of fresh meat up for auction.
“What in the name of the holy mother is that all over her face?”
The man holding her grabbed her chin and turned her face around for his inspection. “She’s been marked, Hamish. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
One of the others approached to peer down at her face. He licked his thumb and scrubbed it back and forth across her forehead while her captor held her still.
“Whatever it is, it’s no coming off. Whoever put it there meant for it to stay.”
“Must be she belongs to somebody. Mayhaps they’ll pay to get their property back, aye? Anyone who went to this kind of trouble to mark it must want it badly.”
The four of them laughed at that, as if the idea of ransoming her off was one of the best they’d had.
She stilled, remaining silent as the men surrounding her plotted. Carefully, slowly, she inched her fingers toward the knife hidden at her waist.
“We’ll check the villages we pass through while we search for the boy. Mayhap we’ll go back to Tordenet wealthier men than we left.”
Tordenet?
Her hand froze as she considered her predicament. She hadn’t just been careless enough to have been taken prisoner by a band of wandering villains. She’d been taken by Torquil’s men.
She rapidly reassessed her situation. Escape from them now would be close to impossible. But since they were looking for the same ones she’d been tracking, biding her time would be no hardship.
Her best course was to let them do the heavy work of locating their prey. By then, surely she’d be able to work out the means to a successful escape.
Twenty-two
SQUATTING ON THE ground, Hall rubbed a bit of dirt between his fingers and tilted his head, straining to catch any sign of the sounds he’d heard earlier. Overhead a distant thunder rumbled, setting a frown of concentration on his face.
This was no time to let his emotions get the better of him. He was too close to finding Bridget.
He rose to his feet and wiped his hands on his plaid before taking a moment to stroke the neck of his massive black horse. They’d ridden through the night with little break for the past three days. Both he and the animal were wearing down.
“Good Beli. Soon enough we’ll find her, and then I’ll give you your rest, old man.”
Hall lifted himself up onto the animal’s back and once again tipped his head to listen.
There! The sound he’d heard before was louder in that direction. A rustling, busy sound of men waking. No better time to drop in unannounced than when your prey was still slow-witted from their time in Nott’s world.
Urging his mount forward, he followed the sound, feeling more confident of his direction as the noises grew more discernible. Four men, by the sounds.
He briefly considered returning to pick up his original course. Men were of no interest to him, and Bridget would avoid encounters with any other than her intended prey.
If she could avoid them.
A darker possibility kept him moving forward, more quietly than before.
The warriors from Tordenet he’d encountered before had traveled in such a number. If these were the other group of Fenrir’s soldiers, they searched for the same prey that Bridget sought. Meaning they were as likely to find Bridget as they were to find Mathew and Dobbie.
He quickened his pace, intent upon all the sounds from the camp. Four men conversing as they prepared to break camp. Four men moving about, readying their mounts.
Four men. But five horses.
He stilled, bringing his mount to a halt to allow him to better concentrate on what awaited him ahead. He filtered out the noises of the forest around him and listened.
Five horses and five human hearts beating, just beyond those trees.
Hall guided Beli forward, the horse’s training allowing them to silently move close enough that Hall’s eyes might confirm the fear his ears had already predicted.
Bridget!
She sat on the ground, her legs drawn up with her forehead resting on her knees. Her arms had been pulled back and bound behind her on either side of a small tree.
If these men had harmed her in any way, they would beg for the mercies of Hela before he was finished flaying the skin from their bones.
Like a berserker in full rage, he charged forward, swinging his sword in an arc over his head. His battle cry pierced the air, echoing throughout the land, louder than any thunder overhead could ever manage.
The men in the clearing scattered. The two already mounted beat a hasty retreat into the woods; he’d worry over their fate once he’d freed Bridget.
One of the men ran toward him, sword drawn, bellowing his own war cry.
Big mistake on his part.
A downward arc of Hall’s weapon, and the warrior’s head took flight from his body. The torso teetered on lifeless feet for a moment before toppling over forward.
Bridget screamed his name and Hall reined his horse around to find her on her feet, the fourth man’s blade at her throat.
By Thor! What had the beasts done to her face?
IT WAS BEYOND foolish of her to have called out Hall’s name. Brie berated herself for having given Hamish the momentary upper hand by acknowledging her
recognition. But seeing Hall here, full of life and obviously recovered, had taken her by surprise.
“Is this man the master from whom you escaped?” Hamish hissed the question into her ear as he forced her in front of him like a living shield. “Hold where you are, stranger! If it’s yer property yer after, I’m willing to strike a bargain.”
“My property?” Hall’s voice sounded strained as if he strangled on the question. “She is no man’s property. Take your hands from her and move away while you still can.”
Hamish tightened his hold and the cold metal of his knife pressed against Brie’s throat. This wasn’t playing out at all as she would have chosen.
“I ken who you are now,” Hamish called out. “I remember you, O’Donar. I remember how you ran away the day of the great fire. Ran away with that brother of yers to save yer own cowardly lives. I remained to battle the inferno, and our laird rewarded me well for it. I’m an officer in Tordenet’s guard while yer still naught but a penniless mercenary. Hunting some other man’s woman for him, are you?”
Hall shook his head, an almost imperceptible movement, his eyes sharp and emotionless, like those of a hawk homed in on his prey. “It was never my life I feared for, soldier. Release the woman. I give no more warnings.”
“You think I fear yer sword? With this one as my collateral?” Hamish laughed, the cold sound sending shivers down Brie’s back. “Perhaps you canna see from up upon yer great horse what fate can so easily, so quickly befall the woman.”
With a hand wrapped in her hair, Hamish jerked Brie’s head back, stretching her neck and forcing her eyes up to the gray, overcast sky. The blade at her throat moved in a delicate arc of motion, leaving in its wake a necklace of burning pain. Not deep enough to do real damage, but inflicting a sting sharp enough to elicit an unconscious gasp.
Across the campsite, Hall lifted his sword toward the heavens and threw back his head, roaring his fury in a deafening cry that reverberated in Brie’s ears.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and the ground shifted and buckled as if it trembled before the fury of some angry god’s wrath. Lightning crackled across the sky in a pattern such as Brie had never seen.
Once, twice, the lightning flashed from one side of the sky across to the other before one large, jagged bolt arced down like a massive, fiery spear toward the very spot where she and the man who held her stood.
The air around her crackled and the hair on her body stood on end. Next to her, Hamish screamed and released his hold on her. Freed from his hands, Brie flung herself away from him to land flat on her face, her arms covering her head. Instinctively, she curled her body to present the smallest target.
Lightning always goes for the trees, her father had warned her as a child. And here she was, right in the blighted middle of a forest.
She had no time to think or plan, only to cower. As quickly as it had begun, it was over. The stench of burning flesh was sharp and acrid, stinging its way into her nostrils, but she kept her head down and covered, refusing to look up. Silence hung in the little glen until Hall shattered it.
“Bridget!”
His hands fastened on her arms and he lifted her to her feet, crushing her against his chest.
“What happened?” She could hardly force the words past her lips. The storm had come out of nowhere, more potent than any she’d ever experienced.
“Are you unharmed?” he whispered, his breath warm against her forehead. “Have they injured you?”
“They injured nothing except my pride,” she answered honestly. She had been careless, and being captured had been her punishment for that carelessness.
She suspected hers hadn’t been the only punishment meted out in this glen. It was as if the gods themselves had seen to Hamish’s punishment. Though Hall’s body blocked her view, she heard no sounds coming from where Torquil’s guardsman had stood only moments before.
She could see his headless companion, though.
“Do you always take their heads in battle?” It had been much the same scene before.
“If I can,” he acknowledged, his heart pounding like a battle drum beneath her ear. “Ensures I only have to battle them once.”
Hall drew back from her, his big hands rising to caress either side of her face, his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks as he stared into her eyes.
“What have they done to you?”
When he spoke, his warm breath tickled the loose hair around her face, distracting her from any thoughts other than of being so close to him.
His finger trailed over her forehead and down her cheek. His arms held her so protectively, his gaze focused so intensely, capturing her own, she could do nothing but breathe in the essence of the man. He filled her senses to the exclusion of everything else.
The tingle of expectation rippled through her body and she leaned in toward him without conscious thought of movement, anticipating his lips once more closing over hers.
He didn’t disappoint.
His kiss was exactly as she remembered, exactly as she’d re-created it in her dreams a thousand times. Warm, strong, demanding.
If the gods chose to freeze time at this moment, she could happily spend eternity as she was right now, ensconced in Hall’s embrace, his lips fixed upon her own.
She closed her eyes, melting into the sensual haze of the moment, and almost missed his whisper when he placed his hands on her upper arms and pulled back from her.
“Armored with her people’s symbols of protection and destiny.”
Her eyes flew open when he shook her, shattering into a million pieces the wonderful, fluffy haze that had cocooned her only seconds before.
“I should have realized what the Faerie was telling me. It wasn’t these men at all. You did this to yourself. You marked up your face in this manner, didn’t you?”
Brie blinked several times, trying to focus her eyes and her thoughts. Marked up her face?
Her face! She’d all but forgotten. Little wonder he drew away from her in revulsion.
There was nothing to be gained in pointing out that in actuality it was Orabilis who’d done the marking. It had been her choice, her decision.
“It was necessary. These are the symbols of—”
“I know well enough what they are,” he cut in, his voice harsh with emotion. “More like symbols of impulsive and irresponsible behavior.”
Like hell they were! If he thought she was going to stand here and listen to him lecture her for something she’d done in the course of trying to save his sorry ass, he was more than mistaken.
Besides, it wasn’t his concern. What she did was her own business, not his. He had his life to attend to, and she had hers.
“It’s of no matter now,” she said, pulling her arms from his grip and backing away. “What’s done is done. I’m pleased to see the witch’s cures worked upon you. And now that yer well, and yer here, we’re only wasting time when we speak of any of this. If we’re to find the sword and the scrolls, we’d best be on our way.”
“We?” Hall’s face colored a deep, blotchy red and he actually sputtered as if he’d momentarily forgotten how to speak. “You’re going no farther in this hunt. I’ve worried my last over you. Have you no concept, no realization, of how much danger you’ve repeatedly put yourself in?”
He sounded enough like her brother to be his twin. And the last thing she needed in her life was two of Jamesy. Did neither of them listen to the words that came out of their mouths?
Did he honestly expect her to believe that she was somehow at more risk in this quest than he? Ridiculous men! All of them thought they were somehow more impervious to danger than she.
“No farther, you say? What would you have of me, then, O wise one? Am I to wait here in this clearing for you to return once you’d completed yer task? It’s no been such a safe place so far, now, has it? No safe at all, between getting captured and whatever that was.”
She flicked her hand toward the smoking, blackened lump lying next to the trees wh
ere she’d stood a short time ago and wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to forestall the shivers that assaulted her. That lump was all that remained of Hamish. Had she not moved as quickly as she had, it might well have been all that was left of her.
“That’s not what I meant,” Hall began.
“No? You’ve something safer in mind, have you? Am I to return to the witch, then? Riding through Torquil’s territory again, tempting fate once more?”
“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ah, then I can only suppose you’d have me go back to Castle MacGahan. Journeying on my own, is it? With who knows how many more of Torquil’s men scouring the countryside, looking to find what we should be after ourselves, right this very minute? Am I so much safer doing that than riding along with you?”
They glared at one another across the emotion-charged distance separating them.
“You’re impossible,” he said at last, turning from her and stalking back toward his horse. “Impossible!”
As perfect a word to describe her situation as if she’d chosen it herself.
Impossible.
As impossible as the dream she realized she still harbored deep in her heart that somehow, in spite of his wealth and her poverty, something might work out between them. She was a fool for not having accepted the truth when she’d first learned that he was a laird, with his own land holdings and responsibilities.
If she’d hoped to overcome the obstacle of their different stations in life, the new one she’d created on her own was the absolute end to any dream she might have clung to for a long, romantic life with Hall O’Donar.
Lairds did not take penniless women as their wives. And they most certainly did not take to wife any woman whose face and body was adorned with the ancient blue markings that were now a part of who she was.
“Impossible,” she echoed in a whisper, heading toward her own horse at the edge of the clearing.
She might not be destined for the life she’d dreamed of, but in whatever life she had, she vowed that she would do her best to be bold and in control. Unlike the girl who had left Castle MacGahan with no thought but revenge in her heart, Brie was a new woman now. Determined. Strong.
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